I was wondering whether any of you can give me advice on the pros and cons of partnering a mid-price amp with significantly more expensive speakers.
What are the negatives of this idea? Will the amp not be able to drive the speakers (and if so, what does that mean)? Will the speakers sound worse than a lower-priced pair of speakers with the same amp because of their inherent incompatibility? And so on
I have arrived at this question because I have been doing a bit of research into replacing my current speakers. For reasons I won't go into here, I have ended up with a (brilliant) Rega Saturn CD player, Rega Brio 3 amp (the new one, with 49W a channel) and a pair of B&W 686s.
I like the 686s, but the fact I have a £1,200 CD player has left me feeling I could probably do better out of my speakers. So I have been to audition a few.
I have tried out the B&W CM1, Leema Xeros, KEF XK10 and, yesterday, Tannoy Revolution Signature DC6Ts (I actually wanted to try out the DC4 standmounter, but the shop screwed it up, and having lugged my amp into London I found they didn't have them in the shop).
Anyway, while they were all better than the 686s, I'm not sure any of them were better enough to justify the extra expenditure (although, to be fair to the Tannoys, they were the best of the lot and were straight out of the box, so were almost certainly not playing as well as they would do - not that I want floorstanders).
So all this made me wonder - if I'm in the region of, say, £600-800, why not buy a pair of second-hand B&W 805S on ebay?
Any thoughts?
What are the negatives of this idea? Will the amp not be able to drive the speakers (and if so, what does that mean)? Will the speakers sound worse than a lower-priced pair of speakers with the same amp because of their inherent incompatibility? And so on
I have arrived at this question because I have been doing a bit of research into replacing my current speakers. For reasons I won't go into here, I have ended up with a (brilliant) Rega Saturn CD player, Rega Brio 3 amp (the new one, with 49W a channel) and a pair of B&W 686s.
I like the 686s, but the fact I have a £1,200 CD player has left me feeling I could probably do better out of my speakers. So I have been to audition a few.
I have tried out the B&W CM1, Leema Xeros, KEF XK10 and, yesterday, Tannoy Revolution Signature DC6Ts (I actually wanted to try out the DC4 standmounter, but the shop screwed it up, and having lugged my amp into London I found they didn't have them in the shop).
Anyway, while they were all better than the 686s, I'm not sure any of them were better enough to justify the extra expenditure (although, to be fair to the Tannoys, they were the best of the lot and were straight out of the box, so were almost certainly not playing as well as they would do - not that I want floorstanders).
So all this made me wonder - if I'm in the region of, say, £600-800, why not buy a pair of second-hand B&W 805S on ebay?
Any thoughts?